Schlafly framed women’s rights as achieved through men’s chivalry within the family

Evidence

In her February 1972 newsletter, Schlafly outlined her issues with the ERA. To begin with, she insisted that the very notion of women’s oppression was ludicrous. Of all people who had ever lived, no one had enjoyed more privilege than the American woman. Beyond that, no legislation could erase the fact that men and women were different: women had babies and men didn’t. Those who didn’t like this fact should take up their complaint with God himself. In light of this God-given difference, “Judeo-Christian” society had developed laws and customs requiring men to carry out their duties to protect and provide for women. Women’s rights, then—their rights to have babies and to be protected—were achieved through the family structure and ensured through men’s chivalry. Tragically, “‘equal rights’ fanatics” threatened to undo all this. All of a sudden, “aggressive females” were everywhere “yapping” about how mistreated they were, equating marriage to slavery, suggesting that housework was “menial and degrading, and—perish the thought—that women are discriminated against.” This was “the fraud of the century.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 158

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports and grounds the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article’s theme: gender-role moral panics as class/identity/political signaling — Schlafly’s chivalry framing is a 1972 instance of the same move.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how moral panics over gender get weaponized politically — same structure as later Trump-era mobilizations.